Although there were no dramatic aftershocks from Saturday morning's earthquake to really make the experience memorable, the matinee show of "The Omega Code" at Mann's Westwood later that day seemed to go over well with the good-size audience that was evidently on the same wavelength as the religious-themed independent, presented by the film division of Trinity Broadcasting Network and released by Providence Entertainment.
With the casting of familiar faces Michael York, Casper Van Dien, Michael Ironside and Catherine Oxenberg, some attempt was made to bring in mainstream viewers, but the filmmaking is fairly weak in comparison to studio fare and strikes one free-thinking secular viewer as a knockoff with no poetry, let alone majesty, given its subject matter.
But if one has the "faith of a little child," as one of the film's two prophets puts it, or the curiosity to stick it out long enough to see King Solomon's Temple rebuilt and a climactic earthquake, with only adequate-at-best special effects, "The Omega Code" lives up to its title as a Saturday-matinee, sci-fi-serial-like B movie.
None too deftly mixing genres between an Internet-era biblical suspense film and a full-blown epic about the coming of the Antichrist, director Rob Marcarelli and screenwriters Stephan Blinn and Hollis Barton assume one has at least a passing familiarity with the New Testament's Book of Revelation. While it may be the best role he's had in many moons, York's evil lord becomes the first leader of the World Union and bedevils all around him in what amounts to a whirlwind fantasy that's more paranoid than profound, more pessimistic than promise-fulfilling. Indeed, the movie is primarily about the rise of Alexander Stone and his henchman (Ironside), and it ends with their defeat and what appears to be a massive explosion of world-enveloping Good, but no further explanations.
Van Dien is the good man duped into being a false prophet. A motivational guru who believes in the "Bible Code", a process of finding hidden messages in the Torah, including the prediction of future events, he falls in with compassionate trickster Stone, and together they unify the world, with the nonbelieving and cripplingly dense hero not having a clue that his powerful boss might have an ulterior motive or two.
York actually makes for a pretty decent heavy, with all the best lines, of course, while Van Dien, Ironside and Catherine Oxenberg, as a ubiquitous newswoman, go through the motions and little more.
THE OMEGA CODE
Providence Entertainment
TBN Films presents a Gener8Xion Entertainment production
Director: Rob Marcarelli
Screenwriter: Stephan Blinn, Hollis Barton
Producers: Matthew Crouch, Rob Marcarelli, Lawrence Mortorff
Executive producer: Paul Crouch
Director of photography: Caros Gonzalez
Editor: Peter Zinner
Music: Harry Manfredini
Color/stereo
Cast:
Dillen Lane: Casper Van Dien
Alexander Stone: Michael York
Cassandra: Catherine Oxenberg
Dominique: Michael Ironside
Running time -- 99 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
With the casting of familiar faces Michael York, Casper Van Dien, Michael Ironside and Catherine Oxenberg, some attempt was made to bring in mainstream viewers, but the filmmaking is fairly weak in comparison to studio fare and strikes one free-thinking secular viewer as a knockoff with no poetry, let alone majesty, given its subject matter.
But if one has the "faith of a little child," as one of the film's two prophets puts it, or the curiosity to stick it out long enough to see King Solomon's Temple rebuilt and a climactic earthquake, with only adequate-at-best special effects, "The Omega Code" lives up to its title as a Saturday-matinee, sci-fi-serial-like B movie.
None too deftly mixing genres between an Internet-era biblical suspense film and a full-blown epic about the coming of the Antichrist, director Rob Marcarelli and screenwriters Stephan Blinn and Hollis Barton assume one has at least a passing familiarity with the New Testament's Book of Revelation. While it may be the best role he's had in many moons, York's evil lord becomes the first leader of the World Union and bedevils all around him in what amounts to a whirlwind fantasy that's more paranoid than profound, more pessimistic than promise-fulfilling. Indeed, the movie is primarily about the rise of Alexander Stone and his henchman (Ironside), and it ends with their defeat and what appears to be a massive explosion of world-enveloping Good, but no further explanations.
Van Dien is the good man duped into being a false prophet. A motivational guru who believes in the "Bible Code", a process of finding hidden messages in the Torah, including the prediction of future events, he falls in with compassionate trickster Stone, and together they unify the world, with the nonbelieving and cripplingly dense hero not having a clue that his powerful boss might have an ulterior motive or two.
York actually makes for a pretty decent heavy, with all the best lines, of course, while Van Dien, Ironside and Catherine Oxenberg, as a ubiquitous newswoman, go through the motions and little more.
THE OMEGA CODE
Providence Entertainment
TBN Films presents a Gener8Xion Entertainment production
Director: Rob Marcarelli
Screenwriter: Stephan Blinn, Hollis Barton
Producers: Matthew Crouch, Rob Marcarelli, Lawrence Mortorff
Executive producer: Paul Crouch
Director of photography: Caros Gonzalez
Editor: Peter Zinner
Music: Harry Manfredini
Color/stereo
Cast:
Dillen Lane: Casper Van Dien
Alexander Stone: Michael York
Cassandra: Catherine Oxenberg
Dominique: Michael Ironside
Running time -- 99 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 10/18/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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